All History

Ironically—or perhaps tellingly—the heart disease “epidemic” began after a period of exceptionally reduced meat eating. The publication of The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s fictionalized exposé of the meatpacking industry, caused meat sales in the United States to fall by half in 1906, and they did not revive for another twenty years. In other words, meat eating went down just before coronary disease took off. Fat intake did rise during those years, from 1909 to 1961, when heart attacks surged, but this 12 percent increase in fat consumption was not due to a rise in animal fat. It was instead owing to an increase in the supply of vegetable oils, which had recently been invented.

Nevertheless, the idea that Americans once ate little meat and “mostly plants”—espoused by McGovern and a multitude of experts—continues to endure. And Americans have for decades now been instructed to go back to this earlier, “healthier” diet that seems, upon examination, never to have existed.

All this was conversational stock in trade on the river in 1906; and, to a slightly lesser extent, also during my second journey, in 1908. There were humorous tales of amateur dentistry against toothache, and far from humorous ones of scurvy through which teeth came loose and finally dropped out, as death approached.

Speaking of the Klondikers, everybody was saying what the bishop had been the first to tell me — that, so far as scurvy was concerned, those tenderfeet were best off who brought the least food with them. For the Athapaskans would not see them die of hunger; and they fed the tenderfeet on medium-cooked fresh fish and game, to the general benefit of their health and the complete avoidance of scurvy.

No one, that I can remember, was seriously worried about cancer; nor was I myself particularly interested. As intimated, I now remember about malignant disease from my first journey chiefly that Bishop Reeve thought it to belong to a group of ills which had behind them nutritional issues. But I do remember noticing more talk of cancer as we approached the Eskimo country, to the effect that the New England whalers, who wintered among the Eskimos east and west of the Mackenzie delta, could find no more cancer among them than missionaries and fur traders had been able to find among the Athapaskans — meaning none. The bishop said he had discussed this with other missionaries who knew more than he did about the Eskimos; I think he mentioned the bishops Bompas and Stringer, and that he had sent messages through Stringer to the whaling captains bolstering their seacoast results with his own from the interior.

Before leaving the subject of animal food we must say a word or two on cannibalism. Human flesh is nowhere a regular article of food ; some blacks undoubtedly kill to eat, others only eat those who are killed in battle, or have died of disease. Sometimes there is a magical idea attaching to the use of human flesh or fat, especially kidney fat, which is cut out before death has taken place : it is held to convey to the eater the courage of the victim. Sometimes it is the bodies of enemies which are disposed of in this way ; in South Queensland it was the recognised method of giving honourable burial to your friends. In many parts both sexes and all classes eat human flesh ; elsewhere it is only the men who will do so. There are no special ceremonies connected with cooking or eating in most districts, and most parts of the body are eaten, the thighs being the bonne bouche. In West Australia, on the Gascoyne River, some ritual is found in connection with eating human flesh. A girl was killed, when she was bathing with several others, by a native, who decoyed her away. She was very plump ; the object of killing her was to acquire this desirable quality. A big fire was made, and after removing her intestines, two natives carried her round the fire a few times in an upright position, the others meanwhile singing in a low voice. Then the body was put in the heart of the fire, where a space had been cleared, covered with ashes and cooked like a kangaroo. One of the participants in the feast was a companion who had been bathing with her. 

In the Turribul tribes ceremonial combats follow the initiation ceremonies. If a man is killed in one of these his body is eaten. Each tribal group sits by its own fire, and a great medicine man singes the body all over till it turns copper coloured. Then the body is opened, the entrails and heart are buried, and pieces of the flesh cut off and thrown to the different parties ; the fat was rubbed on the faces of the principal medicine men, and the skin and bones were carried by the mother for months. The grave in which were the heart and other parts was so sacred that none save a few old medicine men would approach it ; it was marked with blackened sticks tied with grass. Near Maryborough the skin was taken off, and the body distributed to the men and old women, the father or father's brother officiating as carver. The kidney fat was rubbed on the spears, and the kidneys themselves stuck on the points ; this was to make the weapons deadly. The meat is stated to look like horseflesh and smell like beef when it is being cooked. Statements have been made that a girl was sacrificed in South Queensland to some evil spirit ; there is no evidence to show that this was the case, and it may be dismissed as an invention.

Insects and grubs are highly important articles of food in many parts. Mention has already been made of the Agrotis spina moth as an important item in the food of some of the natives of New South Wales. To procure them they lighted fires under the rocks on which they collect, and when the moths fell down they were collected in bushels ; a fire was lighted and kept burning till the ground was considered hot enough ; then the ashes were cleared away, the moths placed on the heated ground, and stirred about till the down and wings came off. After winnowing, they were eaten, or placed in a wooden vessel and pounded. Sometimes they were smoked ; otherwise they would not keep longer than a week. In taste they resemble a sweet nut, but the effects for the first few days are unpleasant. The natives, however, got fat on them, and so did their dogs. Many kinds of grubs are eaten. They had a special instrument for drawing them out of the trees. Ants' pupae or eggs are also a favourite food. Sometimes the pupae were winnowed clear of ants, but in Queensland the two are eaten together, mixed with salt water. In some parts the ants are allowed by a hungry aboriginal to run up his legs: he then sweeps them off and puts them into his mouth as fast as his hands can serve him.

CHAPTER VI FOOD 

Fishing, hooks, nets, weirs, etc. ; cooking. Fowling, snaring, netting, etc. ; cooking. Tracking. Hunting, spearing kangaroos, cooking, opossums ; tree-cHmbing. Crocodile noosing. Food tabus. Division of game. Cannibalism, food, ceremonial, magical. Moths, grubs as food. Honey. Fermented liquors. Water-finding. Cultivation of plants. Nardoo, zamia nuts, yams, etc. Pituri. 

In few parts of Australia can the native count on anything like regular supplies of food. He is dependent on the course of the seasons for his seeds and fruits ; the time of year also affects the supply of fish in many parts ; and in Central Australia, perhaps owing to the barrenness of the land, much time is given up, if our accounts are accurate, to magical ceremonies, whose object is to promote the increase of game and plant life, so difficult does the native find it to obtain sustenance. 

Broadly speaking, the Australian has four kinds of nourishment, fish, flesh, grubs and insects, and vegetable ; but the supply of these varies very largely in different parts of the country. Near Lake Alexandrina, for example, five hundred or six hundred people would gather and stay for months together ; during the biinya-bitnya season, once in three years tribes would come from a great distance in South Queensland to enjoy the fruit In New South Wales, a kind of a moth, Agrotis, formed the staple food of the natives for weeks in one part of the mountains. But it was rare that there was a certain supply of this sort ; as a rule, the native does not know until he catches it what his dinner will consist of. 

There are many different methods of procuring the fish, nearly all of which are practised in North Queensland and included by Dr. Roth in his admirable study of the search for food in that area. He mentions fourteen distinct methods, many of which are again subdivided. One of the simplest, requiring no appliances, is that employed on parts of the Georgina River, where a sort of catfish abounds ; the blacks walk the stream and transfix the fish with their feet. Another procedure is to make the water muddy by trampling with the feet and then to hit the fish or spear them when they come to the surface. More important is the method of poisoning ; Dr. Roth enumerates more than twenty vegetable substances used in this way, and these by no means exhaust the list of plants so used in Australia, for it does not include Diiboisia species, one kind of which gives the well-known pituri and is also used in Central Australia to poison the water-holes for emu. 

More complicated are the methods collectively termed ' bobbing.' Eels are caught by transfixing big round worms with finely split lawyer cane, and putting a dozen or so of this bait down at the end of a short stick. As soon as the fisherman feels a bite, he jerks the stick over his shoulder and the eel lies on the bank. Sometinnes the bait is not impaled, but simply tied head and tail ; but the most remark- able method, used with small fish fry, entails the use of spider's web ; on the lower Tully River is a very large spider, which the natives kill, preserving the abdomen ; they then wind off the web upon the end of a stick and dip the free end into the glutinous silk bag of the dead spider and bob it on the surface of the water ; the fry bite very readily and get their jaws stuck together, with the result that they are hauled out at a great pace by children as well as grown persons. 

Big fish, such as the dugong and turtle, are captured with the aid of the remora or sucker fish ; it is often found fixed on the bottom of a canoe and then kept in water for a few days. Going out to sea, the native ties a string to its tail, and as soon as he has got as close as may be to a dugong, over goes the remora ; it probably fixes itself on the game, but its only use is to serve as a guide ; the fish is not drawn in with the aid of the remora, which only tells the native when he can with advantage make use of his harpoon. The harpoon is used not only for dugong and turtle, but also for the larger kinds of fish : it is essentially a spear with a detachable head, fixed to the shaft so that the two cannot be entirely separated, by a line of some sort ; the shaft is often itself secured by a line, so that the fisherman can haul in his own booty without the need of going after his harpoon. At the mouth of the Tully River shark are harpooned by moonlight ; the harpooner can see by the ripple on the water where the fish is ; his line, thirty fathoms long, is carefully coiled in a dilly bag hung round his neck, a few coils only being held free in his hand, and as soon as he has struck his fish he bends forward to allow the line to uncoil. 

Fishgigs are often used for striking fish in the water ; sometimes the black will strike at random in a deep hole, and after floods a row of men will wade and capture eels by the same haphazard method. In the case of big fish they will dive and spear them from the side or from underneath ; this they do in some parts with the aid of a fire, getting the fish between them and the light. Spearing by torchlight was also common in Victoria ; at night three bark canoes would go upstream, in the stem of each several torches of manna-tree wood ; a native stood or sat with his back to the light and struck at the fish as he passed them. Another method was to lie across the canoe with the face in the water. 

Fish hooks of various kinds are in use, from the primitive vine tendril to the European article in our own day. Besides these, eagle-hawk talons, shells ground down, tortoise-shell similarly prepared, composite hooks with emu, kangaroo, or catfish barbs, simple bone hooks and hooks of two pieces of wood joined by a lump of resin, are in use. The bait in the north is a shrimp or crab, which is never transfixed but invariably chewed before use ; on the Murray, according to Angas, small boys were killed and their fat employed as bait. In New South Wales fishing with hook and line was the especial province of the women, and in the section on canoes will be found a description of how a fond mother took her offspring with her to the fishing-ground. In the canoe was a fire on a mud or seaweed hearth ; the fish was halt warmed on this and then eaten.

A favourite method in some parts is to put down hollow logs of eucalyptus ; these are left for some hours and then taken up again. More common is the use of baskets and cages ; on the Tully small fry go up the river in flood-time in a column a foot broad and a foot deep ; when a woman sees a convenient spot she bends over, holds the mouth of her dilly bag to meet the advancing shoal, and very quickly has it full ; the catch is then tied up in wild ginger leaves for baking. More elaborate is the capture of eels with the eel-basket, a long, narrow cage like a rather magnified umbrella cover ; they are laid lengthways in a shallow part of a creek, and the fishermen beat downstream. 

To enumerate all the different kinds of nets and methods of using them would require a chapter to itself. On the Diamantina nets twenty to twenty-two feet long are worked by two men ; they are wider in the middle than at the ends, and have light poles nine feet long at each end. Twenty or thirty nets are worked together, and the men swim out, holding the poles with one hand and one foot ; they slowly approach the bank in crescent formation, driving the fish before them. Twenty minutes or so is required for a single haul, and they rest after three or four; except for this interval and a rest of three hours in the heat of the day, they work without intermission. 

In South Australia the nets were furnished with a bag containing smaller meshes at one end, into which the smaller fish were driven as the net was hauled in. They apparently wait on the shore until they see the fish before they unfold the net ; then they take it into the water, those on shore keeping them informed of the position of the fish ; as soon as they are enclosed in it, the net is drawn ashore, the central part being kept open by straight sticks of Mallee tied across it. In the Boulia district the method is the reverse of that followed on the Diamantina, which is not far to the east. Two men start into the water at a time, the net between them ; they are followed by other pairs who overlap the preceding couple, and a closed space is thus gradually formed, into which the beaters drive the fish ; the nets are about six feet long. Folding frame nets are in use in Queensland ; instead of being raised out of the water when a fish is caught, the two halves are shut on one another like a purse ; to do this the fisherman may grope the shallow channels, the net at his side or in front ; or it may be fixed in a narrow channel with a watcher on the bank, or a snag close to it, ready to jump in when he sees a fish. Another method, somewhat like the preceding one, is to use two nets, one in each hand ; the fishermen take the water in a semicircle, and others, sometimes without wets, will act as beaters. As a rule, the Australian net has neither floats nor sinkers, but Sturt records the use of both on the Darling River. 

Over the greater part of Australia stone dams and weirs are in use for catching fish. They have breaks in them, in which are sometimes fixed nets, or the platforms may be covered with boughs and a top layer of grass, in which the fish are entangled ; in the Gulf stone dams are erected in the shape of a semi-circle, the extremity of which may reach as much as three hundred yards from the shore. But the most famous weir is in the Brewarina. G. S. Lang says of it : This weir is about sixty-five miles above the township of Bourke ; it is built at a rocky part of the river, from eighty to one hundred yards in width, and extends about one hundred yards of the river's course. It forms an immense labyrinth of stone walls about three or four feet high, forming circles from two to four feet in diameter, some opening into one another, forming very crooked but continuous passages, others having only one opening. In floods as much as twenty feet of water sweeps over them and carries away the tops of the walls ; but the lower parts are so solidly and skilfully built with large, heavy stones, which must have been brought a considerable distance and with great combined labour, that they have stood every flood from time immemorial. Every summer this labyrinth is repaired, and the fish in going up and down the river get confused in its mazes, and are caught by the blacks by hand in immense quantities. 

Other enclosures were made, especially at flood-time, with stakes or bush fences. Dr. Roth describes one which he saw at the head of Birthday Creek ; it was one hundred feet long, composed of six or eight long logs supported on forked timbers at the height of the water surface ; to the timbers were fastened dozens of thin switches, the ends of which were firmly stuck in the mud ; they were eight or ten feet high, and near the sides were left two openings in which nets were set ; the fish were taken in these, as long as the floods lasted ; then they were speared along the base of the switches which formed the central portion. In a tidal creek near Mapoon, the site of the Moravian mission, Dr. Roth saw a blind alley made of bushes ; it was some three feet high, with a partition considerably below the level of the remainder. 

On the Gwydir Mitchell found osier nettings of neat workmanship ; the frame was as well squared as if a carpenter had made it ; osier twigs were inserted at regular intervals so as to form an efficient snare ; these were set up in a river and a small opening left in the centre, to which an ordinary net was applied. 

Movable bush fences are also used ; the women take up their positions across the whole breadth of a water-hole and push before them grass tussets and leafy boughs, by which the fish are pushed up to the bank. 

Some kinds of shellfish, notably oysters, were not eaten in some parts ; but mussels formed an important article of food on the Lower Murray. On Lake Alexandrina it was eaten with a kind of bulrush root ; the women used to dive for the mussels with a net round their necks ; they remained three or four minutes under water, and often brought up a net full ; they dived from a raft and cooked the mussels on a hearth of wet seaweed and sand. For eight months in the year they gathered crayfish ; these they caught with their toes, groping for them in the water ; when they had caught them they immediately crushed the claws to prevent the fish from nipping them. The crayfish were roasted in the embers of their charcoal fires. 

A common way of killing fish was for the fisherman to bite them just behind the head. The preparations for cooking differed according to the tribe ; sometimes they were simply thrown on the fire and broiled — on the Macleay River they were carefully gutted and roasted on hot embers ; but the West Australian method was more elaborate and produced results not unworthy of more famous chefs ; the method is called yadarn dookoon, or tying-up cooking. A piece of thick and soft paper bark is selected and torn into an oblong shape ; the fish is laid in this and wrapped up, strings of bark are wound tightly round the bark and the fish, which is then slowly baked in heated sand covered with hot ashes ; when the fish is done, the bark is opened and forms a dish full of juice or gravy.

Birds form an important article of food in all parts of Australia, the most important being the emu, turkey, duck, pigeon, and various kinds of cockatoo. Some of the methods of capturing these and other birds are sublimely simple ; in New South Wales, Angas tells us, a native would stretch himself on a rock in the sun, a piece of fish in his hand ; this would attract the attention of a bird of prey, which the black would promptly seize by the leg as soon as it tried to carry off the fish. In the same way water-fowl were taken by swimming out under water and pulling them beneath the surface, or, with a little more circumstance, by noosing them with a slender rod, the head of the fowler being covered with weeds as he swam out to his prey, which he dragged beneath the water; as soon as he had the bird in his hand he broke its neck, thrust it into his girdle, and was ready for another victim. Shags and cormorants more often rest on stakes than on the surface of the water ; accordingly, on the Lower Murray, stakes were set up for them ; the native swam out with his noose and snared them as before. During dark nights they drove shags from their resting-places, catching them as they tried to settle, and receiving in the process severe bites from the terrified birds. Almost equally simple was the method of taking black swans in West Australia. At the moulting season young men lay in ambush on the banks till the birds had got too far away from deep water to be able to swim off; then they ran round them and cut off their retreat. The West Australians would also kill a bird as it flew from its nest ; one man creeping up threw his spear so as to wound it slightly as it sat, and the other brought it down with his missile club as it flew off. Boldest of all, perhaps, is the method of taking turkey bustards in Queensland ; the fowler hangs a moth or a grasshopper, sometimes even a small bird, to the end of a rod, on which is also a noose. With a bush in front of him he creeps up to his prey, which is fascinated by the movements of the animal on the rod ; as soon as the black is near enough he slips the noose over its head and secures it. In the Boulia district pelicans are taken from ambushes ; the fowler throws shells some distance into the water, attracting the bird, which thinks the splashes are made by fish rising ; then the black pats the water with his fingers, to mimic the splashing of fish on the surface, the pelican swims round and presently falls a victim to the boomerang, or is captured by hand. The Torres Straits pigeon is taken by simply throwing any ordinary stick into the flock, as it passes down to the foreshore at no great distance from the ground ; or it may be knocked down in a more elaborate way. The flocks take the same path every night, and a high bushy tree is selected which lies in their path ; the black holds in his hands a thin switch, some fifteen feet long, which is tied to his wrist to prevent it from being accidentally dropped ; he himself is lashed to the tree to prevent accidents ; and when the pigeons come past he sweeps at them, generally bagging a fair number. On Hinchinbrook Island, the roosting-trees were known to the natives. They prepared fires beneath in the daytime ; when the pigeons had retired to rest, the fires were lighted and down came the birds. On the Tully the black observes on what trees the cockatoos roost. Then he makes fast to a suitable branch a long lawyer cane, which reaches to the ground ; at night he mounts this, holding on by his first and second toes when he moves his hands; slung round his neck he carries a long thin stick ; and with this he knocks the birds down as soon as he is within reach of them. Small cockatoos and other birds are also captured with bird-lime, which is spread not only on the branches on which they roost, but also on the young blossoms. The swamp pheasant is taken on its nest by means of a net ; in Gippsland they are taken on the nest by hand. The boomerang is a very effective weapon in a large flock of birds. Grey describes how they are knocked down with the kyli at night ; wounded birds are used as decoys ; for these birds seem to be much attached to each other. One is fastened to a tree, and its cries bring some of its companions to its aid. In Victoria and South Australia wickerwork erec- tions were made for the birds to settle on ; near them the black lay in ambush, his noose ready, and attracted his prey by imitating their calls. Emus are powerful birds, weighing perhaps 130 lbs,, and they are not so easily captured. Strong nets, sometimes fifty yards in length, are often employed to take them. The hunter notes the track by which the bird visits a water-hole, and sets up his net some thirty or forty yards behind it, the operation taking no more than five minutes ; when it returns, its flight is prevented by stationing men at possible avenues of escape, the hunters rush out and the bird is entangled in the net or knocked over with boomerangs or nulla- nullas. Sometimes an alley was built, broad at the entrance and narrowing continually, till it ended in a net ; near the opening, midway between the ends, the hunter concealed himself and imitated the call of the bird ; this he does by means of a hollow log, some two or three feet long, from which the inside core has been burnt. Holding this close to the ground over a small excavation, he makes a sort of drumming sound ; the emu struts past the men in ambush, and is easily driven into the net. Emu pits are dug, either singly or in combination ; near the feeding-grounds sometimes they are combined with a fence, opposite the openings of which they are placed, with a large central pit, in which are ambushed three or four blacks to call the birds. The emu is hunted with dogs or surrounded by the whole of a black camp ; it may also be speared by stalking it. The hunter rubs himself with earth to get rid of any smell from the body ; then with bushes in front of him and a collar-like head-dress in some parts, he makes for the bird. Young cassowaries are often run down. Ducks are often taken by stretching a long net across a river or lagoon ; the ends are fixed in the trees or on posts ; and one or more men go up-stream at a distance from the river, and then drive the birds down. At a suitable distance from the net they are frightened and caused to rise ; then a native whistles like the duck-hawk, and a piece of bark is thrown into the air to imitate the flight of the hawk ; at this the flock dips and many are caught in the net. For this mode of cap- ture four men are required. Ducks are also stalked and speared, or snared by fixed nooses set in the swamps, according to a statement of Morrell's, which, however, he leaves us to infer the kind of bird caught in this way. Flock pigeons are taken by a method unlike any described. Their habits are noted, and a small arti- ficial water-hole made in the neighbourhood of their usual drinking-place ; near this the fowler conceals himself, with a net ten or twelve feet in length laid flat on the ground close to the water ; the lower edge is fixed to the ground by means of twigs, and along the whole length of the upper edge runs a thin curved stick, the end of which the black holds in his hand ; the pigeons sit on the water like ducks ; and as soon as a favourable opportunity presents itself, the fowler, with one movement of the arm, turns the net over and bags the unsuspecting birds. For scrub turkeys a series of lawyer cane hoops are set up with connecting strips ; this is baited in the morning with nuts, fruit, etc., and about sundown he takes up his position in his ambush some twelve feet away right in front of the opening ; as soon as the turkey walks in, the black rushes out and secures it. In West Australia birds were generally cooked by plucking them and throwing them on the fire ; but when they wished to dress a bird nicely they drew it and cooked the entrails separately, parts of them being considered great delicacies. A triangle was then formed round the bird by three red-hot pieces of stick against which ashes were placed ; hot coals were stuffed inside it, and it was served full of gravy on a dish of bark. In Victoria a sort of oven was made of heated stones on which wet grass was strewn ; the birds were placed on the grass and covered with it ; more hot stones were piled on and the whole covered with earth. In this way they were half stewed. An ingenious method of cook- ing large birds was to cover them with a coating of mud and put them on the fire; the mud-pie was covered with ashes and a big fire kept up till the dish was ready ; then the mud crust was taken off, the feathers coming with it, and a juicy feast was before the hungry black. The Austrah'an is by no means uncivilised ; he appreciates high game as much as any gourmet amongst us, but he enjoys it in a somewhat different way. The Cooper's Creek aborigines collect in a bladder the fat of an exceedingly high, not to say putrid pelican, and bake it in the ashes ; then each black has a suck at the bag, the contents of which are distinctly stronger than train-oil, and what runs out of the mouth is rubbed on the face ; thus nothing is wasted.

FOOD TABUS

 It might be thought that the natural difficulties of securing a good meal were sufficient without any addition of artificial ones ; but this is not the view of the Australian native. Complicated rules, which varied with the tribe, limited the species and parts of the individual animals which were lawful food for boys, young men, girls, married women, and so on. In the Wotjoballuk tribe boys might not eat of the kangaroo, padimelon, or young native companion ; until he reaches the age of forty a man may not partake of the tail part of the emu or bustard. In the Bigambul tribe young men might not eat of the female opossum, carpet snake, wild turkey, and so on. Honey from certain trees is also a forbidden sweet. Sometimes the penalty believed to follow the breaking of these rules was nothing more serious than grey hairs ; more often illness, skin diseases, and death were prophesied as the judgment that would overtake the offenders. In the Wakelbura tribe it was believed that the young man or young woman who ate emu, black-headed snake, or porcupine would pine away and die, uttering the cry of the creature which they had eaten, for the spirit of the creature would enter them. 

The origin of these food tabus is very difficult to get at ; but in some cases there can be little doubt that the old men were simply playing for their own hand in imposing them. 

This was not all, for there were superadded complicated rules as to the distribution of the game which a man might kill and enjoy personally. Among the Kurnai a catch of eels might be divided as follows : The fisherman and his wife would take a large eel, his mother's brother a large eel, the children of his mother's brother a small eel, and his married daughter a small eel. If a Ngarego man killed a native bear it would be divided as follows : he himself would take the left ribs, his father the right hind leg, his mother the left hind leg, his elder brother the right and his younger the left foreleg, his elder sister would receive the backbone, the younger the liver, his father's brother the right ribs, his mother's brother a piece of the flank, while the head was sent to the bachelors' camp. In the case of a kangaroo both the father and mother of the hunter would get a large portion, but they would have to share it with their own parents. 

It will be noticed that there is no provision for the children of the man's own family ; this is due to the fact that they are often provided for by their grandparents. The supply of vegetable food obtained by a Kurnai woman belonged to her and her children. Among the Yerkla Mining there was a still more communistic arrangement, for the food was shared equally between the whole camp. There were also rules in many tribes as to property in game ; if a hunter wounded an animal it was his property, if it was finally taken, whether he gave it the coup de grace or not.

In the hunting of animals the native can also call to his aid his skill in tracking. 

Like most savages, the Australian black is keen-sighted, and he makes use of his eyes when an enemy has to be followed or an animal hunted down. Many stories are told of the extraordinary powers of the trackers. Cunningham, an early writer, says that they will say correctly how long a time has passed since the track was made ; in the case of people known to them they will even recognise the footprint as we know a person's handwriting. A tracker has been known to say that the man, unknown to him, on whose track he was, was knock-kneed, and this turned out to be correct. On one occasion a white man had been murdered, and it was suspected that he had been thrown into a certain water-hole ; before it was dragged a native, who could have had no knowledge of the affair, was called in to pronounce on the signs ; decomposition of the body had already set in, it appears, and there were slight traces of this on the surface of the pool ; the native gave a sniff and pronounced that it was 'white man's fat,' and so it turned out to be.

 Grey tells a story of how he was galloping through the bush and lost his watch ; the scrub was thick and consequently the ground was unfavourable, but the watch was recovered in half an hour. 

But his powers of tracking are more important to him in the search for food. 

With the exception of the kangaroo and the opossum there are no quadrupeds which the Australian native employs largely in his cuisine. 

The kangaroo may be taken in wet weather with dogs ; but it is more often netted in the same way that emus are taken ; sometimes three nets form three sides of a square, and beaters drive the animal in. Somewhat similar is the method of firing the bush, which is also used for other animals ; in this case the flames take the place of the net, and in their advance drive the kangaroo towards the hunters. They may also be driven, men taking the place of the fire ; or, finally, the most sporting method, they may be stalked single-handed or even walked to a standstill ; but for the latter feat extraordinary physical powers are needed. For single-handed stalking great patience is needed ; sometimes the lubra (wife) helps by giving signals by whistling; at others the hunter will throw a spear right over the kangaroo, which believes that danger threatens it from the side on which his enemy is not ; then the hunter creeps up and spears it. Grey describes how the West Australian runs down a kangaroo ; starting on its recent tracks, he follows them till he comes in sight of it ; using no concealment, he boldly heads for it and it scours away, followed by the hunter. This is repeated again and again till nightfall, when the black lights a fire and sleeps on the track ; next day the chase recommences, till human pertinacity has overcome the endurance of the quadruped and it falls a victim to its pursuer. 

Before they prepare the kangaroo for cooking, the tail sinews are carefully drawn out and wrapped round the club for use in sewing cloaks, or as lashing for spears. Two methods of cooking the kangaroo were known in West Australia ; an oven might be made in the sand, and when it was well heated, the kangaroo placed in it, skin and all, and covered with ashes ; a slow fire was kept up, and when the baking was over, the kangaroo was laid on its back ; the abdomen was cut open as a preliminary and the intestines removed, leaving the gravy in the body, which was then cut up and eaten. The second method was to cut up the carcass and roast it, portion by portion. The blood was made into a sausage and eaten by the most important man present. 

In Queensland the preparations are more elaborate. After the removal of the tail sinews, the limbs are dislocated to allow of their being folded over ; then the tongue is drawn out, skewered over the incisors, which are used for spokeshaves, and would be damaged if exposed to direct heat ; the intestines are removed and replaced by heated stones, the limbs drawn to the side of the body and the whole tied up in bark ; then the bundle is put in the ashes and well covered over. 

In the Paroo district the kangaroo is steamed ; the oven is made of stones and wet grass, and the whole covered over with earth ; if the steam is not sufficient, holes are made and water is poured in. 

The wallaby is taken with nets or in cages placed along its path. When this little kangaroo makes for shelter, it runs with its head down and consequently does not see the trap. In some districts they are trapped in pits, primarily intended to break their legs. The most ingenious method was in use in South Australia : at the end of an instrument made of long, smooth pieces of wood was fixed a hawk skin, so arranged as to simulate the living bird. Armed with this the hunter set out, and when he saw a wallaby he shook the rod and uttered the cry of a hawk ; the wallaby took refuge in the nearest bush, and the hunter stealing up, secured it with his spear. 

The opossom may be hunted on moonlight nights or at any time with dogs, but the commonest method is to examine the tree trunks for recent claw marks. When these are found the native ascends the tree, cuts a hole at the spot where he believes the opossum to be, and drags the animal out. Another method is to smoke it out. 

Various ways of climbing trees are known, the most ordinary being perhaps that of cutting notches for the 1 feet ; then the native ascends, usually with the ball of the big toe of each foot nearest the tree ; but in South Australia he walked up sideways, putting the little toe of his left foot in the notch and raising himself by means of the pointed end of his stick stuck into the bark. In Queensland and New South Wales the rope sling is also found ; in some cases it fits round the man's waist and he uses his axe (PI. xx.) ; in other cases one end of the vine or bark rope is twisted round his right arm, then he tries to throw the other end round the trunk of the tree ; on the end is a knot, to prevent it from slipping from his hand ; and when he has caught it, he puts his right foot against the tree, leans back and begins to walk up, throwing the kaniin a little higher at each step. If the tree is very large, he carries his axe in his mouth and cuts notches for his big toe ; the kajiiin is taken off his right arm and wound round his right thigh when the hand is wanted for cutting notches. When not in use the kamin is not rolled up, as might be imagined ; it is simply dragged through the bush by its knotted end ; it is hard and smooth. This is really the most practical method. As a rule, men only ascend trees, but in some cases women and even women carrying children have been seen by explorers to do so. 

Other animals are of less importance. In the north of Australia the crocodile is taken with a noose, which a native will slip over his head, or by putting up screens in connection with a fence across a stream, in which an opening is left. The screen is made of split cane placed horizontally and all woven together with a very close mesh ; it can be rolled up like a blind. 

Rats are taken in traps or knocked over with sticks ; iguanas are speared in the open or dug from their burrows ; frogs are taken in the water in flood-time or dug out; and snakes are often found in iguana burrows. The wombat and bandicoot are dug out.

Further to the north-east, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, the tribes eat the flesh of the dead man, and then, after some elaborate ceremonies, bury the bones. In the Binbinga tribe a fire is made in a hole in the ground, the head is cut off, the liver taken out, and the limbs dismembered. No woman may take part in the cannibal feast. The bones are taken to the camp of the dead man's father, and he puts them in a parcel : a stout stick is placed upright in the ground, and in the fork of this the parcel is placed ; a fire is lighted in a clear space round it, and in the smoke of this fire is supposed to be seen the spirit of the dead man. Only his father and mother may approach the fire. After a time the bones are placed in a log, and this in the boughs of a tree overhanging a water-hole, to be finally disposed of by a great flood or some similar catastrophe. 

South of the Arunta are the Dieri. After a death they wail for hours at a time and smear their bodies with pipeclay. Tears course down the cheeks of the women, but when they are addressed the mourn- ino- stops as if by magic. As soon as the breath leaves the body of the sick man, the women and children leave the camp, the men pull down his hut so as to get at the body, and it is prepared for burial by being tied up. The great toes are fastened together, and the thumbs are secured behind the back ; this they say is to prevent 'walking.' Eight men take the corpse on their heads, and the grave is filled, not with earth, but with wood, in order to keep the dingo at bay. The space round the grave is carefully swept, and the camp is moved from its original situation, so as to evade the attentions of the spirit if it should happen to get back to its old haunts. Mr. Gason, not a very reliable authority, says that the fat of the corpse is eaten ; the mother eats of her children, the children of their mother, brothers-in-law eat of sisters- in-law and vice versd ; but the father does not eat of his offspring, nor they of him.

This brings us to the subject of plant-food. 

Grey says that a species of flag was cultivated in West Australia, at any rate to the extent of burning it, in order to improve the next crop. He describes exten- sive yam grounds on the Hutt River, but it does not follow that these were artificial. The evidence of Gregory, however, leaves no doubt that there was actual cultivation on the west coast. He says that the natives, when they dug up yams, replaced the heads {fourn. Antli. hist., xvi. 131), and this can only be described as cultivation. The cultivation of purslane {Portulacd) seems to be a well-established fact. It is grown like melons on slightly raised mounds ; before the seed vessels are ripe, the plant is cut, turned upside down and dried in the sun ; then the seed vessels are plucked and rubbed down and the seed collected. Many pounds' weight can be collected in a day, even where there is no cultivation, and the cakes from it are far more nutritious than the well-known nardoo cakes, on which Burke and Wills tried to subsist. 

To describe in detail the vegetable food of the Australian aborigines would demand far more space than can be here allotted to the subject. Probably they employ as food at least three hundred species of vegetables, using the roots or tubers, the pith, the leaves, the fruits, kernels or husks, the seeds, and the gum, according to the species. Often more than one product is in use from a single species. 

When other food is scarce nardoo is the stand-by of the natives in the centre of Australia, but its nutritive properties are small. Of all the fruits eaten by the natives the most remarkable is perhaps the bunya- bunya nut. It is found in a limited area behind Brisbane, and bears fruit in abundance only once in three years. It is ripe in January, and tribes come from a distance for the feast ; each has its own trees ; in fact, each family owns one or more. The nut is roasted in the fire ; it is also placed in a water-hole and eaten after germination. Zamia nuts {Cycas media) form an important article of diet in many parts ; in its raw state it is poisonous. The shell is taken off the nuts, which are broken, pounded, and left in a dilly bag for four or five days in running water ; when they are soft enough they are pounded and baked under the ashes. Grey gives a somewhat different account. He says they are soaked, after being gathered in March, then they are placed in holes in the sand, where they remain till the pulp is quite dry. They are eaten raw or roasted, and in the latter state taste quite as nice as a chestnut. The yam {dioscored) is also highly important ; in some districts the holes from which the natives have dug them cover miles of ground. It is generally considered the province of the women to dig roots, but in some parts the men do so too, in which case the produce is reserved for their use. To get a yam half an inch in circumference and a foot in length, a hole has to be dug about a foot square and two feet deep. To do this the women have only a pointed stick ; this they drive firmly into the ground and shake it, so as to loosen the earth, which they scoop up and throw out with great rapidity with the fingers of the left hand. The roots are eaten raw or roasted ; but in West Australia the natives always mix it with an earth before eating it, alleging that it otherwise is apt to cause dysentery. In Queensland it is washed, baked for four hours, and mashed up in a grass dilly bag ; it is then strained through the dilly bag into a bark trough, in which the bag also remains until only fibre is left in it. Then the mash is washed, sometimes with seven or eight different waters. As soon as the washing is com- pleted a hole is dug in some sandy place and lined with clean sand ; into this the semi-liquid mass is poured, and when all the water has drained off, it looks much like tinned potato, according to Dr. Roth. 

Morrell, the English sailor who was captive among the Queensland natives many years ago, gives an account of the way in which the fruit of Avicennia officinalis was prepared ; a hole was dug and stones heated in the fire arranged on the bottom ; on this was put the fruit and water sprinkled over it ; then bark was put on the top and it was baked for two hours ; a second hole was dug, the fruit put in, water poured over it twice, and it was ready for eating. 

The bean-tree, or Moreton Bay chestnut, is prepared by being steeped eight or ten days ; then it is dried in the sun, roasted on hot stones and pounded ; mixed with water, it is made into thin cakes and baked. 

Solanum hystrix, known as walga in South Australia, is prepared in a curious way ; it is pounded and mixed with congoo, i.e. mallee root bark ; then the shell and seeds are removed and a cake made. When the fruit was not obtainable, the blacks bled themselves and mixed blood and bark into cakes. 

Mylitta australis, a kind of truffle, sometimes called native bread, was eaten in Victoria and possibly elsewhere. In West Australia the natives obtained from the acacias a kind of gum, called kwonnat, and on the grounds where this was obtainable assembled large crowds and held their annual markets. 

A kind of bulrush was largely eaten in South Australia ; it was prepared by being cooked between two stones ; it was to them what bread is to the European. It was cooked on a heap of limestone with wood laid on the top ; another layer of heated stones was placed on these and then wet grass to make steam ; a mound of earth completed the oven. After chewing the bulrush root they spat out the fibrous part, which they converted into rope for fishing-lines, nets, etc. The mussel was usually eaten with the bulrush root. 

This brief survey has not touched on a tithe of the important food-plants, but some idea will have been gained of the extent of the Australian garden and of the complication of the cooking processes ; indeed one may well wonder by what process they arrived at these ingenious processes, especially in the case of poisonous substances. 

It is often asserted that the Australian does not store food ; this is as untrue as that he does not cultivate his soil. Much of his food he must perforce eat quickly, or natural processes would make his labour in vain. But the bunya-bunya nut, grass and other seed cakes, and possibly other kinds of food, were certainly put aside for future use. 

Before we leave the subject of vegetable products mention must be made of pituri, a remarkable plant, the botanical name of which is Diiboisia Hopwoodii. It does not grow in all districts, and is the most important article of commerce. As soon as it is ready — it flowers in January — that is to say about March, messengers are sent, sometimes hundreds of miles, with spears, boomerangs, nets and other wares, to exchange for the pituri, which is in the form of half-green, half- yellow tea with plenty of chips in it. After roasting them on the ashes the chips become pliable and are wetted, teased up with the fingers, and the larger frag- ments removed. Some acacia leaves are then heated over the fire and then burnt ; the ashes are mixed with pituri and the whole worked up into quids about 2| inches long by f inch diameter. These are chewed, and when not in use are carried behind the ear. 

Sometimes pituri is taken before fighting, but its use is common to all classes and both sexes ; it seems to produce a voluptuous, dreamy sensation. Tobacco is now in use among the blacks, of course of European importation, and they are said to smoke pituri when the supply runs short. It is said that the native women use a species of Goodenia to make their children sleep when they are on a long journey.